Taipei - A Taiwan couple who were happily married for 66 years died on the same day, becoming the envy of friends and neighbours who thought it was the perfect ending to an ideal marriage, reports said Tuesday.

Wang Wei-chen, 97, and his wife Wang Lin-hsueh, 87, lived in Kaohsiung, south Taiwan, and had been married for 66 years, the Merit Times said.

Recently Wang Lin-hsueh fell ill and was hospitalized. At 4:30 pm on May 7, she died in the hospital, the paper quoted her son Wang Tung-hsin as saying.

"We transported my mother's remains to a funeral parlour to prepare for her funeral. As soon as we arrived at the funeral parlour, I received a phone call from family members saying my father, who had also been ill, had died in his sleep at home," he said.

"We were shocked because we had not told my father that Mom had died. But during my mother's last days, Dad seemed to know that she was dying and insisted on going to the hospital to visit Mom, but we did not allow him because of his health," he said.

"We would rather think that Father died because he did not want Mother to go alone, but wanted to keep her compnay," he added.

Wang Ling-ying, the couple's daughter, said her parents were deeply in love with each other.

"They were always together, tending flowers in the garden or listening to classical music at home. Father liked to go mountain climbing and sometimes took mother along or took her on overseas sightseeing trips. When father was 90, he was still taking Mom on motorbike joy rides," she said. (dpa)